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Civil War Eastern Theater Quotes

Browse 74 quotes about Civil War Eastern Theater.

Civil War Eastern Theater Quotes

“Robert E. Lee had done his duty and, however heartbroken, was prepared to do his duty still. Having devoted himself to winning the war, until the bitter end, he was now beginning the transition to an equally fervent commitment, reuniting the two halves of the divided country. As he slowly rode back to his camp, some fifteen minutes away, advance soldiers began to shout, “General, are we surrendered?” Lee struggled for words to express his sense of despair and came up short; he was speechless. But soon, two solid walls of men began to line the road, and when he came into view, they began to cheer wildly. At the sound and the sight, tears started to roll in the general’s eyes, and his men, too, began to weep.”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterRobert E LeeConfederate ArmyArmy Of Northern VirginiaAppomattox Campaign
Book:April 1865: The Month That Saved America
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“Before they came in Lee had a couple of adventures. He first clashed with a sergeant of a Mississippi regiment who wandered over the wet field. Lee called out sharply: "What are you doing here, sir, away from your command?" "That's none of your business," the ragged soldier said. "You are a straggler, sire, and deserve the severest punishment." The sergeant shouted in rage, "It is a lie, sir. I only left my regiment a few minutes ago to hunt me a pair of shoes. I went through all the fight yesterday, and that's more than you can say; for where were you yesterday when General Stuart wanted your cavalry to charge the Yankees after we put 'em to running? You were lying back in the pine thickets and couldn't be found; but today, when there's no danger, you come out and charge other men with straggling." Lee laughed and rode off. Behind him an officer baited the sergeant, who thought he had been talking with a "cowardly Virginia cavalryman". "No, sir, that was General Lee." "Ho-o-what? General Lee, you say?" "Yes." "Scissors to grind, I'm a goner." The sergeant tore out of sight along the muddy road.”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterRobert E LeeConfederate ArmyArmy Of Northern Virginia
Book:Gray Fox: Robert E. Lee and the Civil War
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“While President Jefferson Davis in Richmond and his own soldiers continued to support him with unwavering trust, Gen. Lee wrestled with his own demons, including his ill-fated invasion of Pennsylvania, which had been successful through the first day of fighting at Gettysburg. Other more tangible challenges included his ongoing concern about the well-being of his men due to a lack of adequate supplies, and by his own lingering health problems. His “violent back pains” were probably the result of the chronic heart problems that would kill him in 1870.10”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterRobert E LeeConfederate ArmyArmy Of Northern VirginiaConfederate States Of America
Book:The Maps of the Bristoe Station and Mine Run Campaigns: An Atlas of the Battles and Movements in the Eastern Theater after Gettysburg, Including ... 1864
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“Probably the biggest laugh of all that rainy night was at the expense of Private T.C. Green of the Second Regiment. Before the battle Green had been outspoken in the number of Federals he intended killing, and at day's end went through the camp recounting how many of the enemy he had shot before something went wrong with his gun. When a messmate examined the weapon, he found that the gun had not been fired at all, but was full of unexploded charges. In his excitement Green had gone through the motions of loading and firing, but had omitted some essentials, such as changing caps and pulling the trigger, and hence had done absolutely no harm to the enemy.”

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Book:The Stonewall Brigade
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“Chancellorsville marked the culmination of achievement for Lee's "glorious army" that remains indelibly etched in the nation's history. No American army, against such odds and in less than a year, compiled such a record as that of the Army of Northern Virginia, and none altered the direction of a conflict more.”

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Book:A Glorious Army: Robert E. Lee's Triumph, 1862-1863
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“The Army of Northern Virginia was also developing its own distinctive character. It had a harder, more tragic fate, and yet there is more laughter in its legend - as if, in some unaccountable way, it worried less. Out of hardship, intermittent malnutrition, and desperately-won victories it was creating a lean, threadbare jauntiness. Beneath this was the great Characteristic which it derived from its commander - the resolute belief that it could not really be beaten no matter what the odds might be. It had paid many lives for that conviction and it would pay many more before it reached the last turn in the road, but what it got seems to have been worth the price.”

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Book:Terrible Swift Sword
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“The Army of Northern Virginia kept moving, one heavy foot after another, marching through a trance. Hour after hour it diminished. Its line of march now was marked as it had never been marked now - by hundreds and hundreds of abandoned muskets, some just dropped by the roadside, other standing butt-upward, bayonets thrust in the ground: weapons discarded by men who had given up and drifted out of the ranks. Many of these men, beaten and weaponless, continued to tramp along with the army, staying where Lee was because he was the only man they could be sure about in their disintegrating world.”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterConfederate ArmyArmy Of Northern VirginiaConfederate States Of AmericaAppomattox Campaign
Book:Never Call Retreat
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“Among the Confederates killed in this evening encounter in the village was Pvt. Jesse Hutchins of the 5th Alabama Battalion. He enlisted on April 15, 1861, in Livingston, Alabama, and had survived four years of war, only to die in the final few hours.”

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Book:To the Bitter End: Appomattox, Bennett Place, and the Surrenders of the Confederacy
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“The Stonewall Brigade was a fine fighting unit proud to call themselves Jackson's 'Foot Cavalry', but prouder still of the title Stonewall which they shared with their leader, a title which was borne unofficially after Bull Run and officially as has been seen, following Chancellorsville. They proved themselves in the Valley Campaign to be among the greatest marchers of all time. They were the stoutest of fighters as their casualty lists substantiate. It may truly be said that the Stonewall Brigade, like the Tenth Legion of Caesar and the Old Guard of Napoleon, has made its name forever famous.”

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Book:The Stonewall Brigade
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“The doctor finished his work, and the staff lifted him up, helped him to a wagon, an ambulance that had been brought up. he was helped aboard, sat on a thin mattress, and the driver saw his face, recognized him, snatched his hat from his head and held it against his chest as he began to cry, " Oh, Lord, what has happened to General Lee?" There was an embarrassed pause, and Lee looked at the man, surprised at the outburst. "Soldier," he said calmly, "I have been inconvenienced, that's all. It is a small price for the inconvenience we have given General Pope.”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterRobert E LeeConfederate ArmyArmy Of Northern VirginiaConfederate States Of America
Book:Gods and Generals
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“Some historians believe that the Wilderness could have been as great a victory for Lee as that of Chancellorsville a year before. The difference was the absence of both Stonewall Jackson and Lee's characteristic aggressiveness. As indicated earlier, a recent historian believed Lee put his troops in motion a day too late and when he did, he issued contradictory orders to his lieutenants, Ewell and Hill . . . Gordon Rhea went a bit further in his indictment of Lee. He took issue with the commonly held belief that Lee had "trapped Grant in the Wilderness". "He was merely the fortunate beneficiary of sloppy Federal planning and reconnaissance." He went on the write that "his failure to take affirmative steps to impede Grant's progress or to accelerate his own army's response exposed the Confederates to peril." Rhea bluntly noted that "Lee made several decisions during the battle which put his army and his cause in serious jeopardy." Perhaps Lee's most serious shortcoming during the battle was his inability to coordinate the two wings of his army, and as a result they fought as independent entities.”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterRobert E LeeConfederate ArmyArmy Of Northern VirginiaConfederate States Of America
Book:The Maps of the Wilderness: An Atlas of the Wilderness Campaign, Including all Cavalry Operations, May 2-6, 1864
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“By the afternoon of 30 August, Brig. Gen. William Starke's Louisiana Brigade of Jackson's Division had begun to run very low on ammunition. Then around 3.00 pm the men of John Hatch's Federal Brigade advanced on the Louisiana troops who were defending a section of the unfinished railroad near the "Deep Cut". Despite heavy fire Hatch's men pressed forward. A number of the Southern infantrymen eventually ran out of cartridges and rather than stand idly by they began throwing stones at the advancing Yankees. The Confederate line was never in serious danger; Porter's attack had already spent itself and the Louisianians were speedily reinforced by C.W. Field's Brigade of Virginians. However, the symbolism of the event was too powerful to ignore and became on of the most famous of the war.”

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Book:Second Manassas 1862: Robert E Lee’s greatest victory
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“My friends,” he began with good cheer, “how do you like this way of coming back into the Union?” He went on to explain that he and his fellow soldiers had felt the need of a summer outing, “and thought we would take it at the North.” They might be conquerors, he said—“this part of Pennsylvania is ours today; we’ve got it, we hold it, we can destroy it, or do what we please with it”—but they were also Christian gentlemen and would act accordingly. “You are quite welcome to remain here and to make yourselves entirely at home—so long as you behave yourselves pleasantly and agreeably as you are doing now. Are we not a fine set of fellows?” With his honeyed words he had the crowd in the palm of his hand, only to be interrupted by a querulous, impatient Jubal Early. Old Jube forced his way through the onlookers to confront Extra Billy and snarled, “General Smith, what the devil are you about? Stopping the head of this column in this cursed town!” Not the least taken aback, Extra Billy replied, “Having a little fun, General, which is good for all of us, and at the same time teaching these people something that will be good for them and won’t do us any harm.”

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Book:Gettysburg
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“Captain Frank Sterbing believed that the majority of the soldiers of the 121st Pennsylvania were lying on the ground by this point, and the remainder would be soon enough if they remained in their position for another minute. Biddle reached the same conclusion and ordered the broken regiment back to Seminary Ridge. The speed with which the troops crossed back to the seminary was, according to one of the men who made the dash, "remarkable, probably the best on record." (page 102)”

American Civil WarPennsylvaniaCivil War Eastern TheaterArmy Of The PotomacUnion ArmyGettysburg CampaignBattle Of GettysburgPennsylvania History
Book:The Maps of Gettysburg: An Atlas of the Gettysburg Campaign, June 3–July 13, 1863
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“The whole brigade took a queer, perverse pride in the regimental band of the 6th Wisconsin—not because it was so good, but because it was so terrible. It was able to play only one selection, something called “The Village Quickstep,” and its dreadful inefficiency (the colonel referred to it in his memoirs as “that execrable band”) might have been due to the colonel’s quaint habit of assigning men to the band not for musical ability but as punishment for misdemeanors—or so, at least, the regiment stoutly believed. The only good thing about the band was its drum major, one William Whaley, who was an expert at high and fancy twirling of his baton. At one review, in camp around Washington, the brigade had paraded before McClellan, who had been so taken with this drum major’s “lofty pomposity” (as a comrade described it) that he took off his cap in jovial salute—whereupon the luckless Whaley, overcome by the honor, dropped his baton ignominiously in the mud, so that his big moment became a fizzle.4”

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Book:Mr. Lincoln's Army
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“Both realized the political consequences of allowing the resignation of the first general to beat Robert E. Lee on the battlefield.”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterArmy Of The PotomacUnion Army
Book:The Maps of the Bristoe Station and Mine Run Campaigns: An Atlas of the Battles and Movements in the Eastern Theater after Gettysburg, Including ... 1864
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“Without having planned it—and without any official sanction—Chamberlain suddenly gave the order for Union soldiers to “carry arms” as a sign of their deepest mark of military respect. A bugle call instantly rang out. All along the road, Union soldiers raised their muskets to their shoulders, the salute of honor.”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterArmy Of The PotomacUnion ArmyAppomattox Campaign
Book:April 1865: The Month That Saved America
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“The army had fought hard and endured much, it had pride and self-pity at the same time, and it was developing its own legend, which - like the profound emotional attachment which it had for its commanding general - would always set it apart from the other Union armies. It was acquiring what can only be called a sort of dogged pessimism, a fatalistic readiness to expect the worst, as if it sensed that its best efforts would be wasted but was not thereby made disheartened; and now as for months to come it would have to keep step with its rival, the Army of Northern Virginia.”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterArmy Of The PotomacUnion Army
Book:Terrible Swift Sword
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“Meade was more careful and calculating of the odds than Grant . . . and, too, he had the benefit of two years' experience fighting against Robert E. Lee. He took the tactical initiative by translating Emory Upton's feat at Rappahannock bridgehead back in November to seek a similar success against the Spotsylvania salient, as ordered by Grant for May 10. Upton's planning was timely, but not enough time was allotted to position a proper support fire; a day's delay might have awarded a victory to Upton's innovation. It was much the same for the hurried May 12 offensive - there was no time to plan a deliberate exploitation of whatever break might be made in the Confederate lines. This was a very large army with an entrenched high command, and Meade struggled to move it at Grant's arbitrary pace. On May18 (as John Gibbon pointed out the enemy was read, waiting, even anxious for the Yankees to attack, and Grant impatiently ordered this forlorn hope anyway.”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterArmy Of The PotomacUnion ArmyOverland Campaign
Book:Lincoln's Lieutenants: The High Command of the Army of the Potomac
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“Complaint was made, then and since, that Meade failed to coordinate his attacks, that he was not up to managing these offensive operations. But Cold Harbor was a stark demonstration that by 1864, whether coordinated or not, no frontal assault on the entrenched Army of Northern Virginia could possibly succeed. And at Cold Harbor Meade recognized that fact before Grant did.”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterArmy Of The PotomacUnion ArmyOverland Campaign
Book:Lincoln's Lieutenants: The High Command of the Army of the Potomac
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“Mead had not been invited to the surrender at the McLean house, but he determined to meet his opposite number before the armies parted. On April 10 he rode through the now-peaceful lines to meet his engineer corps comrade from the old army. "What are you doing with all that gray in your bead!" Lee exclaimed. "That you have a great deal to do with!" Meade replied.”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterArmy Of The PotomacRobert E LeeUnion ArmyAppomattox Campaign
Book:Lincoln's Lieutenants: The High Command of the Army of the Potomac
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“To be sure, late that afternoon, Union soldiers drifted into the Confederate camp, and soon knots of blue- and gray-clad men dotted the hills around Appomattox Court House; bullets were indeed replaced by backslaps, the rebel yell with a hearty Southern drawl, war fervor with the first hints of war nostalgia, unbridled hatred with nascent relief, and, by the next day, West Point mini-reunions were even breaking out at the McLean farmhouse. But”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterAppomattox Campaign
Book:April 1865: The Month That Saved America
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“Appomattox was not preordained. There were no established rules or well-worn script. If anything, retribution had been the larger and longer precedent. So, if these moments teemed with hope—and they did—it was largely due to two men, who rose to the occasion, to Grant’s and Lee’s respective actions: one general, magnanimous in victory, the other, gracious and equally dignified in defeat, the two of them, for their own reasons and in their own ways, fervently interested in beginning the process to bind up the wounds of the last four years. And yes, if, paradoxically, these were among Lee’s finest hours, and they were, so, too, were they Grant’s greatest moments.”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterRobert E LeeAppomattox Campaign
Book:April 1865: The Month That Saved America
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“The next day, it was still raining when Lee issued his final order to his troops, known simply as General Orders Number 9. After four years of arduous service, marked by unsurpassed courage and fortitude, the Army of Northern Virginia has been compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources. I need not tell the brave survivors of so many hard fought battles, who have remained steadfast to the last, that I have consented to the result from no distrust of them. But feeling that valor and devotion could accomplish nothing that would compensate for the loss that must have attended the continuance of the contest, I determined to avoid the useless sacrifice of those whose past services have endeared them to their countrymen. By the terms of the agreement officers and men can return to their homes and remain until exchanged. You will take with you the satisfaction that proceeds from the consciousness of duty faithfully performed, and I earnestly pray that a Merciful God will extended to you His blessing and protection. With an increasing admiration of your constancy and devotion to your country, and a grateful remembrance of your kind and generous considerations for myself, I bid you all an affectionate farewell. For generations, General Orders Number 9 would be recited in the South with the same pride as the Gettysburg Address was learned in the North. It is marked less by its soaring prose—the language is in fact rather prosaic—but by what it does say, bringing his men affectionate words of closure, and, just as importantly, what it doesn’t say. Nowhere does it exhort his men to continue the struggle; nowhere does it challenge the legitimacy of the Union government that had forced their surrender; nowhere does it fan the flames of discontent. In fact, Lee pointedly struck out a draft paragraph that could have been construed to do just that.”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterRobert E LeeArmy Of Northern VirginiaAppomattox Campaign
Book:April 1865: The Month That Saved America
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“The unquenchable guerilla warfare this officer had been hinting at was perhaps the one thing that would have ruined America forever. It was precisely what Federal soldiers like Grant and Sherman dreaded most - the long, slow-burning, formless uprising that goes on and on after the field armies have been broken up, with desperate men using violence to provoke more violence, harassing the victor and their own people with a sullen fury no dragoons can quite put down. The Civil War was not going to end that way (although it was natural to suppose that it might, because civil wars often do end so) and the conquered South was not going to become another Ireland or Poland, with generation after generation learning hatred and the arts of back-ally fighting. General Lee ruled it out, not only because he was General Lee but also because he had never seen this war as the kind of struggle that could go on that way. He understood the cause he served with complete clarity. His South had meant neither revolution nor rebellion; it simply desired to detach itself and live in its own chosen part of an unchanging past, and Mr. Davis had defined it perfectly when he said that all his people wanted was to be let alone. Borne up by that desire, the Confederacy had endured four years of war, and it was breaking up now because this potential for inspiring the human spirit had been exhausted. With unlimited confidence the Confederacy had fought an unlimited war for a strictly limited end. To go on fighting from the woods and the lanes and the swamps might indeed plague the Yankees and inflict a deep wound beyond healing, but one thing on earth it could not do was give the South a chance to be left alone with what used to be.”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterRobert E LeeAppomattox Campaign
Book:Never Call Retreat
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“I've been a soldier all my life. I've fought from the ranks on up, you know my service. But sir, I must tell you now, I believe this attack will fail. No 15,000 men ever made could take that ridge. It's a distance of more than a mile, over open ground. When the men come out of the trees, they will be under fire from Yankee artillery from all over the field. And those are Hancock's boys! And now, they have the stone wall like we did at Fredericksburg. - Lieutenant General James Longstreet to General Robert E. Lee after the initial Confederate victories on day one of the Battle of Gettysburg.”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterArmy Of Northern VirginiaGettysburg CampaignBattle Of GettysburgMilitary Theory
Book:The Killer Angels
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“I believe every man who stood up was either killed or wounded," said Lieutenant Oliver Williams, who was himself hit. This regiment had participated in a touching event, well remembered by both armies. At Fredericksburg in late 1862, after the Sharpsburg campaign, it had held a dress parade at which the band played "Dixie." Across the Rappahannock a Northern band heard and played back the song as a bit of camaraderie. The band of the 20th North Carolina responded by playing "Yankee Doodle." Then both bands, as if by prearrangement, joined in "Home, Sweet Home." This chorus ran along the lines and both armies sang and wept.”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterArmy Of The PotomacArmy Of Northern Virginia
Book:The Killer Angels
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“It is recorded that during the long winter after the Battle of Fredericksburg, when the two rival armies were camped on opposite sides of the Rappahannock, with the boys on the opposing picket posts daily swapping coffee for tobacco and comparing notes on their generals, their rations, and other matters, and with each camp in full sight and hearing of the other, one evening massed Union bands came down to the river bank to play all of the old songs, plus the more rousing tunes like "John Brown's Body," "The Battle Cry of Freedom," and "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, the Boys Are Marching." Northerners and Southerners, the soldiers sang those songs or sat and listened to them, massed in their thousands on the hillsides, while the darkness came down to fill the river valley and the light of the campfires glinted off the black water. Finally the Southerners called across, "Now play some of ours," so without pause the Yankee bands swung into "Dixie" and "The Bonnie Blue Flag" and "Maryland, My Maryland," and then at last the massed bands played "Home, Sweet Home," and 150,000 fighting men tried to sing it and choked up and just sat there, silent, staring off into the darkness; and at last the music died away and the bandsmen put up their instruments and both armies went to bed. A few weeks later they were tearing each other apart in the lonely thickets around Chancellorsville.”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterArmy Of The PotomacArmy Of Northern Virginia
Book:Mr. Lincoln's Army
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“the long roll called William Wofford’s Georgia brigade to fall in for duty. Orders were issued to fill haversacks with snowballs and form line of battle, and behind its color guards the brigade marched two miles to the camp of Joseph Kershaw’s South Carolina brigade. “We were in line of battle on a hill and Kershaw’s formed and come out to fight us,” Georgian Jim Mobley wrote his brother. “The field officers was on their horses and when they come against us, they come with a hollar! and, Benjamin, Great God, I never saw snow balls fly so in my life.” The order to open fire was given at 100 feet. Charge and countercharge were spirited by the Rebel yell. Combat was hand-to-hand, prisoners were taken. “I tell you it beat anything . . . ,” Mobley exclaimed. “There was 4000 men engaged on both sides, and you know it was something!”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterArmy Of Northern VirginiaChancellorsville Campaign
Book:Chancellorsville
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“At one point they passed a newly abandoned Rebel encampment, and Captain Bowers was surprised to see that it looked just like one of their own. “In every respect it was as good a camp as any we have had. . . .” (Rummaging through this campsite, men of the 2nd Maine came upon a packet of photographs of Federal soldiers. Someone recognized a name on one of them as a man in their brigade, and before long Sergeant Walter Carter, 22nd Massachusetts, was handed the pictures he had lost on the Fredericksburg battlefield five months earlier. And scavengers in the 83rd Pennsylvania recovered some of the fancy French knapsacks they had lost at Gaines’s Mill the previous June.)”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterArmy Of The PotomacArmy Of Northern VirginiaChancellorsville Campaign
Book:Chancellorsville
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“Confederates in Jackson’s column reported seeing a Yankee balloon—it was the Eagle—and assumed that if they could see it, it could see them. Yet such were conditions aloft that not a single report reached General Hooker that day from the aeronautical corps that an enemy column was marching to the south and west of Chancellorsville.”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterArmy Of The PotomacArmy Of Northern VirginiaChancellorsville Campaign
Book:Chancellorsville
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“Maj. Gen. A. P. Hill’s division, which had remained behind at Harpers Ferry to oversee the surrender, was marching hard to reach the battlefield. The only question was whether Hill’s “Light Division” would arrive in time to save the Army of Northern Virginia.6”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterArmy Of Northern VirginiaAntietam Campaign
Book:The Maps of Antietam: An Atlas of The Antietam (Sharpsburg) Campaign, Including the Battle of South Mountain, September 2 - 20, 1862
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“It was a saying in the army that all a Yankee was worth was his shoes, and after Fredericksburg the story went round how a Confederate soldier stopped to pull off the boots of a Union officer supposed to be dead. Suddenly, in the midst of pulling off the first boot, the 'corpse' weakly raised phis head and cursed the rebel for robbing the wounded. 'Beg pardon, sir,' replied the Confederate as he nonchalantly walked away, 'I thought you had gone above.”

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Book:The Army of Northern Virginia
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“The word began to filter down the lines, and the grumbling stopped, there was something new about this march, something these men had never been a part of before. If the fight in the Wilderness had not gone their way—the most optimistic called it a draw—they were not doing what this army had always done before, they were not going back above the river. If they had never said much about Grant, had never thought him any different from the ones who had come before, if they had become so used to the steady parade of failure, this time there was a difference. Some wanted to cheer, but were hushed by nervous officers. So along the dusty roads hats went up and muskets were held high, a silent salute to this new commander. This time, they were marching south.”

Historical FictionAmerican Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterArmy Of The PotomacOverland Campaign
Book:The Last Full Measure
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“Richmond serves one purpose. Lee must defend it. If we threaten the city, he will have to confront us. Lee will soon learn … we are not going away. If the newspapers and all those people in Washington must hear that, fine, I will write it down, send a letter to Stanton. You can deliver it yourself, read it to him, to all of them, make them understand what we are going to do. If it takes all summer … if it takes all year … it is only a matter of time before General Lee must face the consequences.”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern Theater
Book:The Last Full Measure
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“From first to last the Army of the Potomac was unlucky. It fought for four years, and it took more killing, proportionately, than any army in American history, and its luck was always out; it did its level best and lost; when it won the victory was always clouded by a might-have-been, and when at last the triumph came at Appomattox there were so very, very many of its men who weren’t there to see it.”

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Book:Mr. Lincoln's Army
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“In the four years of its existence the Army of the Potomac had to atone for the errors of its generals on many a bitter field. This happened so many times—it was so normal, so much the regular order of things for this unlucky army—that it is hardly possible to take the blunders which marred its various battles and rank them in the order of magnitude of their calamitous stupidity.”

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Book:Mr. Lincoln's Army
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“Stonewall Jackson was master of all he surveyed. Two Union forces were withdrawing from his front. There was a certain beautiful symmetry to it. The campaign, which started with a single enemy army pursuing Jackson southward through the valley, would end with two beaten Union armies withdrawing from him in a northerly direction. A week later, Jackson advised his mapmaker, Hotchkiss, to 'never take counsel of your fears.' A person who followed such advice would be doomed to a short life.”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterStonewall Jackson1862 Valley CampaignCounsel And Fear
Book:Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson
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“All in all, it was as if a clean wind from the blue mountains had blown through this army, sweeping away weariness and doubt and restoring the spirit with which the men had first started out; restoring, for the last time in this war—perhaps for the last time anywhere—that strange, magical light which rested once upon the landscape of a young and totally unsophisticated country, whose perfect embodiment the army was. In a way, this army was fighting against reality, just as was Lee’s army. The dream which possessed the land before 1861 was passing away in blood and fire. One age was ending and another was being born, with agony of dissolution and agony of birth terribly mingled; and in the Army of the Potomac—in its background, its coming together, its memories of the American life which it imagined it was fighting to preserve—there was the final expression of an era which is still part of our heritage but which is no longer a part of any living memories.”

American Civil WarCivil War Eastern TheaterArmy Of The Potomac
Book:Mr. Lincoln's Army
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